I was in a fraternity in college, and one of my frat brothers had a homie that managed a guy named Woody Allen. This kid, his name is Michael George, he moved to California. Long story short, when he moved here, they broke up. So Michael was left with nothing. He’d signed a lease but knew nobody in California. I was just being a nice guy. So I set him up with a bunch of meetings, and just out of the goodness of my heart because his friend was my good friends. Then, uh, three weeks later he discovered Martin Garrix on Soundcloud. Which Martin Garrix makes probably 20 million plus a year… Who he then brought Martin Garrix to Scooter Braun.

We got in a room with Scooter and… I always say winners know the winners. Right? Fucking five minutes. He’s like, what are we going to do? It happened right away. It was just, I mean, he’s an east coast guy, I’m an east coast guy. I’m a Jew, he’s a Jew. I was a party planner. So was he… there were just a lot of similarities. For me as an entrepreneur, when you find someone that you see similarities in yourself, Ill invest in that guy all day long. Because I wish I had someone like me when I was 21 that has been through all that shit that I have, could walk into a situation and be like, ‘Oh, don’t do that because I did that already and fucked up.’

That’s just the nature of the world’s general psychology. People want to see you do good, but not better than them. That’s why I always preach ethics and integrity. People always think that you can’t make money and still have ethics and be nice. But that’s everything. I wouldn’t be this if I was a piece of shit. You don’t even have to be liked. You have to be respected.

The most important thing is authenticity. It’s about finding something that aligns with your passion and your effort. Everyone says do something that you’re passionate about, which I agree. But, it also needs to be aligned with something that, you know, you can wake up and do at five o’clock in the morning… and still be doing it at midnight.

My advice to anybody out there, spend however long you need, it could be at 20 or at 40… But, search to find something that you truly love and that you can just put in that work because you can’t win unless you putting in the work. That was, that IS, the core thesis of our whole entire company. We just work like maniacs. So find something you’re passionate about, and can put a lot of effort into.”